The present invention relates to a call management system for a telephone, a database, a telephone and to methods and systems for managing a call.
When a user attempts to make a telephone call, the connection is not always successful. For example, the other party may be engaged on another call; their telephone may be switched off, out of range, or otherwise unavailable; the other party may decline to accept the call; or the other party may not be available to take the call. In domestic situations, when there is a firm intention on the part of the user to contact only the intended other party, such situations are inconvenient but a further attempt at connection is generally made, and successful, after a brief period of time.
When a user is attempting to contact the provider of a service (e.g. a business) the failure to make a connection is especially inconvenient, since the user may wish to obtain the services as soon as possible. As with the above described domestic situation, the service provider may be engaged on another call and unable to take the incoming call, or may be away from the telephone and not be able to answer the call. Even if the service provider has multiple telephone lines, all of the lines may be busy. There are myriad other reasons why the connection may not be possible.
Suppose that a user's vehicle has broken down and the user attempts to contact a breakdown recovery service. Failure to connect to the recovery service on the first attempt results in the user having to wait by the roadside, making repeated attempts to connect to the recovery service. It is rare that a user who has broken down by the roadside will have ready access to a list of other recovery services in the area. To find alternative services may require the user to leave their vehicle to locate a telephone directory, or make use of a chargeable directory service.
Ultimately, the failure to connect calls results in reduced revenue for the telephone network operator. This is because the network operator does not collect payment from a user for an unconnected call but still incurs overhead costs for the operation of the telephone network infrastructure handling the attempted connection.
It is estimated that, on average, for the telephone network as a whole (including fixed line, mobile networks, VoIP etc), over 20% of all voice calls are not connected on the first attempt. With mobile networks, particularly, available signal strengths influence call connections still further and it is estimated that between 30% and 40% of calls including a mobile telephone are not connected on the first attempt. This figure may be still higher for mobile-to-mobile calls.